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features our online version of the Harper's Weekly newspapers published
during the Civil War. These papers have a wealth of incredible details
on the conflict, including news reports and illustrations created by
eye-witnesses to the historic events depicted. We hope you enjoy
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Entered according to Act of Congress,
in the Year I865, by Harper & Brothers,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of
New York.

THE FIFTEENTH CORPS CROSSING THE SOUTH EDISTO.—[SKETCHED BY
DAVIS.]

THE WEIGHT OF THE FEDERAL
ARMIES.

THE armies of the Union are bearing
down heavily upon
Richmond—the great military centre upon which the revolutionists have drawn back
for their last convulsive efforts against the United States Government. For
almost a year
Lieutenant-General
GRANT has confronted the
principal army of the
Confederacy with a force so strong as to make any
depletion of that army perilous to the safety of Richmond.
Not for one moment has the tenacity of his hold been relaxed ; even the old move
of the rebels down the Valley against
Washington proved ineffectual to turn
him from the gates of the doomed capital. How long he might have to wait thus he
knew not, but he knew that he was compelling the concentration of the best
portion of the rebel force against himself, and that the battles which
SHERMAN
was conducting in the West would have to be fought without any help from
ROBERT E.
LEE. He knew that from the
battle of Donelson the advance of our Western armies had been a series of flank
movements on Richmond. The
movement of HOOD northward after the capture of Atlanta and his defeat
by
THOMAS was the turning-point
in our favor. From that point
the great flank movement under
SHERMAN progressed with almost incredible velocity,
meeting with no considerable resistance, from Atlanta
to Savannah, and thence into North Carolina.

The rebels may compare this movement to the flight of an arrow, if they please,
but it was none the less a
successful flank movement on Richmond.
Besides, it was not like the flight of an arrow, except in the matter of
ease and velocity. It has secured our possession of all the sea-ports and all
the great rivers of the South. It has completely destroyed
the Georgia and South Carolina systems of railroads; and it has effected
these great objects, for which a

dozen battles might well have been fought, without a single important struggle.

But
SHERMAN'S
and
GRANT'S
armies are not the only ones
available in the combinations against Richmond. There is
SHERIDAN'S
splendid corps of cavalry already with
GRANT ; there is
HANCOCK'S
veteran corps, which, with the army of Western Virginia, constitutes a
formidable army north of Richmond; and it is not impossible that the force which
THOMAS has been organizing in the vicinity of Eastport will also take part in
this final struggle of the war. We have, it is true, in the earlier stages of
the war, had in the field a larger number of men than we now have, and we have
before formed combinations which in themselves were
quite as formidable as those now forming. But power is measured by resistance :
and in order to estimate the weight of the armies now operating against
LEE, it must be considered
how weak is the resistance which he can oppose to them. In some sort this power
of resistance has been tested. For, even if we allow that for the sake of
concentration it was better for
BEAUREGARD,
BRAGG, and
HARDEE
to fall back into co-operation with
LEE, it still remains
true that this concentration has not enabled
JOHNSTON to resist even
SCHOFIELD's column with any
success. And the test thus afforded is a fair one, for there was the opportunity
to fight SCHOFIELD
alone ; and it was most desirable that he should be defeated before he should be
joined by
SHERMAN.

The battle of last Saturday before Petersburg shows what
LEE may hope to accomplish by hurling his columns against
GRANT'S
fortifications. His loss upon that occasion more than decimated his army. Half a
dozen more such battles would leave him no army to fight with. In a few days it
will no longer be an exaggeration to speak of Richmond
as besieged. To
prevent this complete
in- (Next Page)

RAISING THE
STARS AND
STRIPES OVER THE CAPITOL AT COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA. - [SKETCHED BY DAVIS]

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to acquire the original 140+ year old Harper's Weekly leaf we used to
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purchase allows us to continue to archive more original material. For
more information, contact paul@sonofthesouth.net

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